Overview

Cell Church Resource Network began with a Vision for bringing in-depth Cell Church Training to Russia.

Members of our team were concentrating our ministry in the St. Petersburg Ooblast area planting Churches with Russian Pastors. Through the years of 1990 and 1996/97 there were many crusades in Russia and there were always amazing results at the crusades: 100's and 1,000's being saved nightly.

Then all of a sudden the crusades ran their course and the Churches began counting the numbers of believers in cities compared to the numbers that came forward at crusades... the churches had only a remnant of the Harvest. Soon the crusades were unable to attract people. Many evangelists tried doing all the same things they did in the early 90's but found out in the late 90's that no one was showing up.

It was time in the late 90's to begin to strengthen the Churches to do the reaching out themselves, for the remnant that was in their churches to mature and begin making disciples. It was now a time for the Ephesians 4:11 offices that had been neglected to rise up, Pastors and Teachers and to give the Evangelistic office a rest..., Church Planters and Itinerant Church Leaders with geographic authority are rising up one by one. But it is time "for the equipping of the saints for the works of service."

We heard a word of direction: prepare Russian Churches for a Latter Rain -- there was an Early Rain, a season in the early 90's of a filling of the Churches but now it was time to prepare the church for a Latter Rain, an abundant outpouring.

Because we believe the Church should ultimately be the scepter of God's Rule on Earth, we are concentrating our ministry on providing to the churches in Russia, all Churches of the Living God, a systematic method of equipping, releasing and sending out the Priesthood of all Believers, through a Cell Church Methodology.

We began this task with partnering with Dr. Ralph Neighbour to bring his "Year of Transition - Cell Church," taught in the states today as ACT, to Russia. ('The Year of Training -- ACT' was later approved as a seminary course now being taught at Regent University's School of Divinity. We offer certification by Regent University to attendees.)

The goal was to completely translate this four week long intensive training course in Russian along with all the discipleship books, equipping books, and training weekends in Russian. So in the end what we were teaching would be reproducible and transferable amongst denominations and church associations in Russia.

Today we have broadened our training material to include much on Church Growth with resources such as:
• Church Planting Workshop, Bill Beckham
• DISC/Assessment Testing, Ken Vogue
• Hout's Wagner Spiritual Gifts Inventory, Peter Wagner
• Natural Church Growth Principles, Christian Schwartz
• Power Healing and Power Evangelism, John Wimber
• Prayer Warrior Series, Peter Wagner

We are also currently working on publishing rights for other "Strategic Church Growth Material."

Our Vision is simply this: "to prepare the Churches in Russia for a Latter Rain, a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Russia... but this time for the Churches to be able to retain the harvest by assimilating this next harvest into Cells and raising up the Priesthood of all Believers!"

History of Our Seminars

We began in March 1997 with a two day "Introductory Conference" in St. Petersburg, Russia -- some 500 pastors and leaders showed up from all over Russia. We decided that there was enough interest to go ahead and prepare all the translations for the manuals, books, and powerpoints for the LCD Projector so that the course would be professionally taught beginning in June of 1997.

We began The Year of Training -- Cell Church Module #1 in St. Petersburg in June of 1997, Module #2 in October of 1997, Module #3 in March of 1998, and finally graduating all attendees at Module #4 in June of 1998. All together, counting attendees that visited at least one or two of the seminars, we had some 900 Pastors and Leaders attend from 150 Cities in Russia, Ukraine, Beloyrussia, Latvia, Tajkeistan, Uzbekistan, etc. We had also received formal invitations to do these conferences in 36 other cities.

Now, we are doing conferences at strategic cities with strategic churches in Novosibirsk, Chelyalinsk, Yaroslavl, Volgograd. Almost 3,000 pastors and leaders attended our Module #1 in these cities. This January they came from some 600 cities, plus Armenia and Kazakstan.